Games Workshop has announced the 8th edition of 40k. Unsurprisingly it draws somewhat on their experiences with their (eventually) successful experiences re-booting Fantasy Battle into Age of Sigmar.

And, of course, a lot of people are losing their minds, preparing to rage-quit etc. etc.

One of the first things I did was read their FAQ on the new edition to get some kind of idea what they were going to do. The second thing I did was think on what this could mean – for our events, for the hobby, for my own efforts etc. The third thing I did was to call Christian – the fellow with whom I run Astro.

So – what does this mean?

Well, let’s take a (capsule) look at what GW has said. The game will be changing. This is a major rules changes that necessitates old Codex books going by the wayside. So – very strong game changes not just ‘tweaks’. GW is also breaking the hobby out into ‘Free Play’ (throw models down and shoot stuff – much like the old unbound, I expect), ‘Narrative play’ (build your forces in themes and campaigns from the 40k universe) and what amounts to Competitive or Tournament play.

I don’t expect Free Play to amount to much. By and large players like some structure. This might be okay for teaching folks, but I wouldn’t expect to see much more of it than that.

Competitive/Tournament style play – this is interesting stuff. GW is taking back the competitive scene from outsiders such as the ETC and ITC crowds. They will have their own lists designed for competitive play, likely limit over the top combos etc. This is very much going to change that side of the hobby. I expect a lot of the ‘broken’ stuff to get taken out. Those playing versus play are likely going to have to really learn how to play their armies. Broken combos will get fixed lickety split. Many very good tourney players will welcome this as it will really emphasize skill. – That is – if it turns out this way. This one – the execution is going to be very important. However GW has promised to look to the community for changes and feedback. It may take them time to get it right – but I think their hearts and minds are in the right place. They will get there – and the hobby will benefit from it.

For Astro, of course, well we’ve always been about Narrative play even while we put the aegis of a ‘tournament’ over it. From the very first Astro the crazy scenarios and the fact that people didn’t all play the same scenario meant that the ‘tourney’ style play we did was a very different experience from more conventional events. I think, at first, even we ourselves didn’t realize how much. Yet a lot of people embraced our vision.

For us – the organizers of Astronomi-con – we have a really unique opportunity. Christian and I are going to go ‘back to the drawing board’ with Astro. We are going to carefully outline our philosophies and, in the light of an entirely new system – we are going to create from Astro – which began as a ‘v3’ tournament long ago – an entirely new creation focused on narrative play, enjoyable times and crazy fun. We will still support our core philosophies of keeping everything above board and out front, crazy fun narrative story based scenarios and having people play armies which are as evocative of the 41st Millennium as we can manage. Within those bounds – we are going to do our best to create something new, cool, and hopefully totally unique – and fun as heck out of the new edition.

Change need not be a bad thing. With all change comes opportunity and this one looks to have a great deal of wonderful opportunity for event organizers like ourselves who have long had a hard time balancing the narrative and competitive aspects of play. With them neatly separated by the rules set, we can focus on what we do best and really try to create new adventures, battles, and wars in the 41st millennium.

Welcome to the New Age. Cadia has fallen. Biel Tan broken. A Primarch has risen and daemon princes stalk the stars. We’re going to take that stage, dress it up and bring your armies to it!

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As Tournament Organizers, we are ultimately responsible for the way our events are run. This covers all aspects of the tournament, from something as simple as how many points each player is allowed to use when creating their armies, to what restrictions will be enforced such as disallowing multiples of the same formation or limiting Lords of War.

Some Tournament formats such as the ITC produce their own FAQ’s and impose their own limits on abilities and limits for their events.

Astronomi-con while generally very open to using existing units and rules sometimes has to put a few of its own ‘fixes’ in place to address rules oddities, or potentially abusive combinations.

In an effort to ease questions about what is and is not allowed with respect to codices, units, and formations for Astronomi-con we have simplified things somewhat from our inclusive list of codices and supplemental rules.

Astronomi-con has always been about including as much of the 40k universe as possible within the scale and scope appropriate to the points level being played with the goal of encouraging narrative thematic fun games for all participants.

To address the questions of what units and codices are allowed, we have opted to do away with the 30-day restrictions on new releases. Currently it seems new units with their rules are made available almost every week via White Dwarf, in advance of a codex release. If a unit has complete rules available then they are permitted. If a unit is released with an incomplete set of rules – such as referencing special rules or wargear that has not yet been released then that unit will not be permitted.

All currently published Codices, Dataslates, Formations, Supplements, and their associated FAQ’s will be permitted unless otherwise noted on the Ruleset page. This also includes Forgeworld Imperial Armour books, Experimental rules, and their related FAQ’s. Black Library hosted rules are also permitted.

At long last we now have a comprehensive list of codices, supplements, dataslates, and Imperial Armour books cataloged on the Ruleset page. Players may select their armies using units and formations from these sources, following the tournament rules for Army Selection.

This list of approved sources of units is now over 60 published sources, so players have an unprecedented amount of choice for how to compose their armies. Army lists must be submitted to the organizers for validation so when preparing your list be sure to note the source(s) that your force is selected from.

There have been a lot of changes to the 40k ruleset over the past year, and it has been a great deal of effort to organize and present this list. So should something not be listed, please let us know.

We have been debating the exact format of this year’s tournament for the past couple of weeks and have decided to go with a more traditional format which excludes Lords of War.

There are a few updates to the website which are still underway, so expect a few changes over the next little while, but we wanted to get registration open to allow everyone to get signed up and allow us to prepare for the event.

We would like to add some more sponsors to support this year’s event, by providing terrain, prizes, or both. If you or your organization are interested in being a sponsor, please contact the organizers.

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As part of the changes brought by the new edition of the game, we have seen fit to revise the tournament format as follows:

Scenarios will once again feature a Primary and Secondary Objective format. With a Win-Draw-Loss component based on the Primary Objective, awarding 9-5-1 Victory Points respectively. Secondary Objectives will be unique for each scenario and award up to 6 VP for each scenario. So, players can score between 1-15 Battle Points for each scenario they play.

We have updated the way Warlord Traits are handled, lifting previously banned Warlord Traits.

Warlord Traits that provide a Victory Points bonus will be allowed, and any Victory Points gained by these Warlord Traits will be combined with other Secondary Objectives. In these situations players can only ever score up to the scenario’s maximum allowance for Secondary Objectives.

Other special rules that generate or deny Victory Points for a player’s army will be handled on a case by case basis and will be covered in the FAQ section of the website.